Israel/Palestine Thread

Why "fair play"?

Thought you didn't have an opinion on Israel / Gaza, or support either?

Also, we all know you see Gazans as rapists etc, and like to sneer everyone who is against the mass murder of the civilian men women and kids, as this comment shows. We know you don't support them.

But what is it that Israel is doing that you don't support, specifically?

Looking at the chart of answers I'm a bit surprised at it. I'd only take the dark blue very unfavourable as total condemnation of Israel. The dark green as total support. There's a vast swathes in there that aren't happy with Israel but not totally against them either. The thing to gauge is how much against them somewhat favourable or unfavourable is. It certainly is far from total condemnation, I would have expected a higher figure on that.

This type of murder is an instrument of ethnic cleansing. Effectively Israel is telling Palestinians in Palestine to leave their homeland or be murdered.

https://www.europeanpressprize.com/article/what-the-wounds-are-telling-us/

Sidhwa is a 43-year-old trauma surgeon and critical care physician from California, based at a hospital in Stockton. Among colleagues, he’s held in high regard — not just for his clinical expertise, but also for his international work. He never takes more than a week off, unless it’s for a humanitarian mission. He has worked in crisis zones like Zimbabwe and Haiti, and trained surgeons in Ukraine and Burkina Faso. He wants to go where he’s needed most.

It is March 2024, and this is his first day. A Palestinian nurse is guiding him through the hospital. Then, suddenly, his gaze lands on two young boys lying utterly still in their beds. They look no older than eight or ten, he estimates. Their heads are swathed in bandages. They are on ventilators. The rest of their bodies are intact.

“What happened?,” he asks.

The nurse barely speaks English. But she points to their heads. “Shot, shot,” she says.

At first, Sidhwa assumes she’s mistaken. Are they shooting at children? Minutes later, looking at the scans, he sees she was right.

When they step into a second room, they find two more boys, in the same condition.

“I thought: what the hell?” he says over the phone to de Volkskrant, his deep voice steady. “How is it possible that, in this small hospital, four children are lying here with gunshot wounds to the head — all admitted within the past 48 hours?”

The four boys are all slowly dying. That evening, Sidhwa makes a note in the diary on his phone. But there’s no time to reflect. Not yet.

In the thirteen days that follow, he sees nine more children with single gunshot wounds to the head or chest — children who were likely shot deliberately. “I started to wonder if my hospital was near some crazy sniper,” Sidhwa says. “Or a drone team killing children just for fun.”

Back home, at a medical conference, Sidhwa meets an American colleague who had worked in another hospital in Gaza just before him. When Sidhwa brings up the children, the man nods. “To my surprise, he said: ‘Yeah, I saw that too — almost every day.’’”

The doctor in question, Thaer Ahmad, confirmed this account to de Volkskrant.

“That was the moment,” Sidhwa says, “when I decided: I have to find out what’s really happening here.”

meanwhile them “easterners” are laughing all the way to the bank

India not giving two s***s again

It is very difficult to understand how highly trained soldiers identified young children and babies and shot them in the head. It serves no purpose and collusion by western media avoids it being brought to the attention of ordinary citizens. Imagine the outcry and the international meetings that would be called if one Israeli or American or Ukrainian baby had been murdered so deliberately by a state army.

It can only be understood as Islamophobia.

A big problem going forward is that support for Israel is likely to be an electoral liability for most politicians. Very few people are going to vote for a politician because they support Israel, outside the hardcore crowd mentioned above. They are becoming extremely unpopular as a nation across most demographic cohorts.

Thank you @bored65 . Specifically, for the mapping image you supplied of a months-long investigation by Al Jazeera (AJ) on weapon exports to Israel. I always stipulate context matters!!

Below is a brilliant detailed article by Irish award-winning international affairs journalist (CNN, The Independent...) Caolán Magee - he uploaded other mapping images:

“Israel imported military-related goods from six European countries despite arms restrictions”
By Caolán Magee / 23 May 2026
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2026/5/23/not-just-the-us-india-to-brazil-51-nations-armed-israel-amid-gaza-war

Highlights

“The US was Israel’s largest supplier of military-related imports during the war, accounting for more than 42 percent of the total declared value identified in this investigation, according to the ITA data.

“India ranked second, responsible for about 26 percent.

“These two countries accounted for more than two-thirds of the total value of arms imports recorded.”

“In total, the imports were valued at 3.22 billion shekels ($885.6m), with 91 percent of that value recorded after the ICJ’s ruling, according to the ITA data.”

STARRY: ^ AJ reported legal scholars saying the governments that supplied arms to Israel after ICJ ruling might be complicit in genocide.

2022-2025
A quick summation, as you can see from source on the mapping image, AJ’s analysis was based primarily on Israeli Tax Authority (ITA) import data between 2022 and 2025, and this was verified by customs records and FOI requests. Their meticulous Investigation traced military supply chains linked to countries across Europe, Asia, North America and South America. And of course, these countries are signatories to the Geneva Convention.

“In fact, according to the ITA data, arms imports INCREASED after the ICJ ruling, with the largest share falling under the category of munitions.

“The five largest countries of origin for military-related goods entering Israel - the United States, India, Romania, Taiwan and the Czech Republic - all recorded increased shipments during the war.

“While many countries included in this investigation do not share statistics on arms exports to Israel, the ITA data shows that 2,603 consignments of military-related goods - including imports labelled as goods related to ammunition, explosive munitions, weapons parts and armoured vehicle components - entered Israel between October 2023 and October 2025.

“Al Jazeera analysed more than 6.5 million individual customs entries covering Israeli imports between 2022 and 2025. The investigation focused on imports where customs codes begin with “93”, the HS chapter covering arms and bullet-related exports, as well as code 87100000, which covers tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles and their parts.”

STARRY: ^^^ What’s pointed out by “STOP arming Israel” global Pro-Palestinian activists is those allied countries to Israel, who proclaim they aren’t exporting arms to the genocidal pariah, do this INDIRECTLY. They produce components for the global F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme, which is managed by US Department of Defence. There are 19 allied countries aligned with US.*** These critical parts for F-35 fighter jet fuselage and electronic components are then distributed to international buyers - ISRAEL.

*** Click on the links: Australia Belgium Canada Czech Republic Denmark Finland Germany Greece Israel Italy Japan Netherlands Norway Poland Republic of Korea Romania Singapore Switzerland United Kingdom United States

https://www.f35.com/f35/about.html

Finally, don't overlook journo Caolan’s Magee’s jpg on "Military-related goods entering Israel by country or self-governing territory of origin"